Computer users communicate with their computers via interfaces of all types. To cite just a few examples: the users operate keyboards and mice, guide pens or fingers over touch-sensitive surfaces, or speak into microphones. The computer interprets these actions as instructions and displays documents on screens or printers accordingly.
The interfaces conventionally comprise hardware and software components. Graphical user interfaces (GUI) interaction takes place using mouse pointers, scroll bars and buttons on the screen, guided by keyboards and pointing equipment (for example mouse, tracker ball) in the user's hand.
As with any user-computer communication, there are limitations. For example, the area of the screen and the size of the letters determines whether documents can be displayed in their entirety or whether documents have to be displayed broken down into regions.
Horizontal or vertical scroll bars are suitable, for example, for displaying large documents. Techniques such as scrolling or paging are used in this connection.
Improvements are desirable, for example, to avoid undesirable delays during viewing that occurs when the user alternately changes between mouse and keyboard.